Tag Archives: coney island

Coney Island and the Brooklyn Cyclones

Posted by katie ett on August 30, 2012 – 12:00 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, living in new york is neat
Tagged as , , ,

I went to a Yankees game once. I also went to a Staten Island Yankees game. But I didn’t even remember that the Brooklyn Cyclones existed until my friend Lizzie invited me to a game last week with the promise of Nathan’s Famous hot dogs hours of honing my pretending-to-care-about-sports skillz.

My landlord/roommate/co-worker/friend, Jack, and I took off after work on the Q train aaaaall the way to the very last stop, Coney Island. (Read about my very first visit back in 2007 on my very old LiveJournal, complete with terrible, terrible photos.) As soon as you step off the train, this greets you, and the then the entire sky opens up in way that makes you feel like the entire world is behind you and the only thing before you is ocean:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

We spent a few minutes on the boardwalk, being totally creeped out by the Coney Island Funny Face (although, OMG, check out the original iteration, which is basically the scariest thing I’ve ever seen):

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

We admired the now-defunct Parachute Jump (I love the picture on that page that looks like a present-day Instagram photo but is actually from the 1930s or 40s):

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

Then, we got our hot dogs and gummy bears (the softest gummy bears I’ve ever had!) and settled in with Lizzie and her friends at glorious MCU Park:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

The mascot came over and greeted a swarm of children who appeared out of nowhere as we tried to figure out what he was. A pigeon? A chicken? No idea. They’re the Brooklyn Cyclones. What possible sense could this make? Although, really, what’s funnier than a chicken in a cyclone? Nothing:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

Some d-bag Tim-Tebowed on the field so all the stadium could admire him and comment on his moral fortitude:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

And then the game began!

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

And it went on for a long, long time! And then it went into overtime, too! I eventually got uninterested and started taking pictures of Lizzie:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

And then Jack and Melanie:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

And then Nico and Lizzie:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

And then Lizzie’s and Nico’s shoes while some kid in the background clawed her mom’s mouth out (BROOKLYN!):

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

A good time was had by all.

But especially by these fools in jorts:

Coney Island and Brooklyn Cyclones

Mermaid Parade 2008

Posted by plumpdumpling on July 8, 2008 – 1:01 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, restaurant ramblings
Tagged as , , , ,

Most people see the annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade as an opportunity for frivolity in the sand, a chance to bare it all in the sun, the one time they can feel free to be themselves. I, on the other hand, see it as a chance to eat a hell of a lot of hot dogs and judge other girls’ spare tires.

And so I present to you . . .

The Last People on Earth You’d Want to See Naked
are Always the First to Take Off Their Clothes

I took these pictures in the span of about five minutes, because that’s how long we cared to watch the parade before deciding that we NEEDED Nathan’s hot dogs. The stand on the boardwalk had less of a line and more of a glob of people standing around it, the idea being that it was more efficient to push and shove your way to front any chance you got than to actually wait your turn like decent, rational human beings. Luckily, halfway through our 45-minute wait, I heard my name being said behind me with a question mark, and I turned around to see Leah, who was in a couple of my creative writing workshops at THE Ohio State University and could always be counted on for stories about maybe liking girls when the rest of the class was writing crap about trying yoga for the first time. We chatted about her MFA in creative writing and the fact that she’s actually using it to work for a food and travel magazine (swoon!) and how badly I want to go to Columbia for my Masters and my great boyfriend and her great girlfriend and so on and so on.

When my friends Sonya and Adam got to the order counter finally, I let these elderly ladies who had been sort of edging their way in front of me squeeze in behind them. Sonya turned back around to stand with me, and one of the ladies said to her, “You go ahead.” I said, “Oh, she’s with him,” and the other lady said, “Trust me, we know. We’ve been listening to you for the last half-hour. They’re together, your boyfriend’s on vacation in California, that girl has her Masters degree from Chicago, and you want your Masters degree from Columbia. Well, we live right by Columbia, and we could’ve had a kosher meal up there. For half the price.” Sonya and I laughed, but we secretly thought they were totally creepy.

An hour after first feeling the pangs of hunger, we found a grassy knoll on which to lunch and went about our munching

and slurping

and gnawing like the rabid beasts we are.

My chili cheese fries came with a tiny fork, which was a real shame, because I was ready to plunge my entire head into those things until I saw that they evidently expected me to be civil about it. And the corndog? THE BEST ONE OF MY LIFE.

So, yeah, it was a great time. It’s just kind of funny that we went to Coney Island on the crowdest day of the year just to eat some hot dogs that are there year-round.